Alice Nyong

Menswear Focus: Heresy

2012-08-08T14:05:00.001-07:00

Originally featured in The Real Runway, July 29th. HERESY

Portrait of Jasper and Dom. (above)

Last Thursday marked the launch of menswear label Heresy, made and designed by TTR favourite Dominic Owen, and fellow illustrator, the super-talented Jasper Dunk. The launch promised booze 'n' lolz at one of our favourite Shore-bitch locations, Beach Gallery. But after all the free beer had been drained and the dull hum of Friday's hangover recided, the strength of the duo's first offering seriously stuck in our minds.

The collection boasts wearable, hard-wearing Tees, hats and baseball shirts, all hand screen-printed with the precision and attention to detail you'd expect from designers from an illustrative background. However it was more the content of their prints that gives Heresy such a strong backbone. With what the boys call an 'atheistic lean' their bold and beautiful prints depict daggers through bibles, Owen's ominous beaked characters doing unspeakable things perched on inverted crosses and a black humour that makes Heresy more than your average t-shirt start-up. Echoed in the colours of their truly beautiful lookbook images, they have chosen earthy tones, charcoals and burgundys to bring a maturity to the pieces that isnt always a given when you have a message to give.

Our picks from the collection are the baseball tee, and charcoal five panel hat, that puts the supreme clones to shame. With a super website and installations planned in Dalston's Jaguar Shoes later this month, Heresy have their hands full, and they've even had time to pop some mixes onto their site to bob along to while you shop. Amen.

http://heresylabel.co.uk/

'Classist' in Chelsea

2012-05-22T04:07:00.001-07:00

So something has come to my attention. Prepare yourself, because for a minute, stuff's about to get real high-brow. Don't worry- I'm telling you it with the confidence that you can handle it.

It starts off with me bludgeoning out any sense of reality I have left, by watching E4's Made in Chelsea; see, I told you. One of the dead-eyed girls had an altercation with another, and it was pretty funny. Like many others, I often find half the hilarity from this kind of mind-numbing occurrence comes from the response on twitter during and after, so as I blithely cast my eye over the variously directed death-threats my attention was drawn to some twitter whining; twineing if you will. The twiners in question were musician professor green and his reality tv sort Millie Mackintosh. They've had it to the back teeth of the twittersphere taking the micheal out of the 'class divide' in their relationship.

'I find it really interesting how it’s spoken about because people are so quick to point out the difference in class but I’ve always believed that your class is dependent on how you treat people, not your financial situation,' Says Pro Green. Monsieur Green hails from Hackney and his Mrs from Chelsea; as her claim to fame so clearly states, and they're like totes worlds apart.

His observation is, I believe correct, but not exactly ground-breaking. I can tell you with the utmost confidence, that this is not the first posh girl that's fallen for a boy with a neck tattoo, who grew up in a council house that cost as much as her first pony. And it won't be the last.

Nevertheless its the stuff of tabloid fodder- the heiress and her bad-boy; they lap that stuff up. In the grand scheme of things, it's nothing surprising, and in the real world it's certainly nothing new. You can't fight biology; human attraction is chemical, and their relationship is no different. In their case, their 'heritages' are bus-rides away (or a black cab ride; whichever mode of transport you favour) My parents, along with millions of other Londoners from mixed heritages, are from different continents, and I don't hear them whining. Oh right, professor Green has something to say on that too:

'If the difference were race people wouldn’t be so quick to point it out – it’s still prejudice isn’t it? I find it weird that’s it such a big thing.'

Yeah, people were quite quick to point it out until relatively recently, but your memory's short, so we'll let that one slide. But hold on Stephen; as Ms Macintosh sultrily refers to you, I think these (lets be honest; relatively light in terms of 'prejudice') jibes might not stem from your grime artist exterior and tough guy tatts, but in fact from the whole reason your lady friend is notable in the first place. Millie Macintosh, along with every other person on 'Made in Chelsea' has aligned herself with a piece of programming that directly focusses on 'class', in an era where the very notion was beginning to seem irrelevant.

The whole premise is that these people are 'made' in the royal borough, have inheritances, good pedigree, perfect lighting and unspoken (barely) superiority. The watcher buys into the fact that these people are wealthier than the average, better spoken than the average, and at a tangible advantage to the average Hackney pleb.

It's all relatively light-hearted; it's e4, not an ideology akin to the third reich. "Some scenes have been created for your entertainment" :It's not all real, its just a bit of a laugh; to club the banality out of a Monday evening. But the twitter responses to a relatively innocuous disagreement that I touched upon earlier, do show that people are aware that the viewer is very much placed at the bottom looking up. People's reaction to the social minutiae of these people is different to other reality TV. Their opinions are shaped by the fact that they present their lives as being better than theirs. The knee jerk twitter yobbo rationalises that these people have so much money that they don't deserve to have problems. Everything that goes wrong for them is self-inflicted. Down to their snobbery or snootiness. Perhaps this is prejudice, but every detail of the production encourages this way of thinking. 'Made in Chelsea' gets viewers, but not necessarily sympathisers.

The British love an underdog, and Made in Chelsea is the antithesis of this, these people pointedly portray themselves to ooze a certain brand of success and prosperity. Simply by agreeing to be on a programme like this Millie's nay-sayers, I believe see her as clambering up onto a high horse. Now she's asking to be let back down to live as the plebs live, and it won't be an easy journey.

She's caught the eye of a regular Joe, a boy from Hackney prospering from a less than favourable background, articulate and warm; ironically exactly the kind of underdog Britain loves. No wonder Millie wanted a break from the Chelsea set, but living your life on TV leaves you open to conjecture, and by doing something so far from everything you've been urging us to believe about you; you are going to come up against criticism.

I can understand that Professor Green is surprised by the reaction his new relationship is receiving from a section of the press and public. He just met a pretty girl and went through the motions, but comparing the reaction to something like mixed racial relationships, with its thickly weaved cultural and social significance I believe is misguided. I'll take my chances and say he's experiencing predjudice-lite; specifically commissioned by e4.

I've seen Millie use the word 'classist' whilst briefly commenting on the subject, in between posting pictures of her bronzed bod. I think when it comes down to it, this over-simplistic nomenclature is just her wielding a clumsy fist at a disillusioned public whom she originally hoodwinked into believing she was something she wasn't.

When it comes to her It doesn't make her a bad person, but it shows the fragility of fame for fame's sake when it comes to the public's opinion. And when it comes to him, he's a white guy from Hackney, making urban music that's making the transition into the mainstream. He probably can't believe that this is a situation in which he's coming across prejudice.

Union Jack- Who do you think you are?

2012-05-11T05:08:00.000-07:00

Oooh, it's such an exciting time to be British aint it. Oooh the olympics. Oooh the Jubilee. Street parties, days off work, cheese and pineapple on a stick, bunting and booze. Don't it just make you all warm inside? Well no actually, but that's just me.

I'm worried about tube delays and rising prices. Gormless tourists and crowbarring the idea of patriotism into every piece of useless ephemera; but don't mind me, I'm just a Londoner; we're sour it's what we do. I'm sure the rest of the country is thrilled at the prospect.

However, when it comes to vacuous stuff like fashion, and design on a broader sense, I find all this British hoo hah actually quite fun. The main thing I like about the queen is when she gets her glad rags on. I like the aesthetic of a British souvenir (aside from an I love London jumper; which all clearly need to be burnt) The sparkle, the pomp and ceremony; appeals to the magpie in me. Its bizarre and lol and British.

But I do feel like people are taking one thing too far. And that's the union jack.

One good thing about all the BRITISH things happening this year is that I do feel normal, decent British people have been able to reclaim our flag from the racists. The pesky BNP did a bit of re-branding to a flag that is pretty good in the iconic stakes. Racists are pretty good at that; just look at the swastika. For ages those stripes represented the bitter aftertaste of the British fish and chips; not the fried delights of the main meal. But perhaps with Kate and Will as our new representatives and all these dates in the diary, being British means something better (at least for now) and red white and blue is back in favour. Actually to say it's 'in favour' is a massive understatement; it is bloody everywhere.

If your buying your lunch in M&S and the content of your sarny is slightly British (ie. contains cucumber) it's emblazoned with it. Not to mention if you fancy some strawberries. If you open a newspaper, look at an advertisement, turn on your television, oh yes; it's there. Its there, but it's not there. Its meaning is getting watered down. It's become twee; executed in muted pastels, printed on crafty cushions and hung from bunting. Without trying to sound like the racists that squirrelled the flag away to their dingy dwellings in the first place; that's not the way I see our flag.

For me, the last time I saw this piece of design used successfully and appropriately to personify the country it represents was stretched across Geri Halliwell's boobs at the 1997 Brit awards. Now that depicted a britain I recognised. She literally may as well have been on a seaside postcard. That union jack summed up page 3, sugary tea and chips from the paper. The pervieness, the gaudiness, the tack. As much as we try to represent a Britain that's got it's shit together and is prepared for the world to bowl into it's capital for sports day, really we're all just in it for the piss up. Whether you're from the royal borough or moss side; if your British, you're more likely than not brassy, pompous or batshit cray or all of the above, and we've got a suitable flag to prove it.

It's nice that waving around a conglomeration of colours and lines doesn't mean you hate immigrants as much as it did, but I vote we save the flag for things that really represent this crackpot of a nation. Leave the bunting up, but find another way to advertise clotted cream.

Archive: Go With the Fro

2012-04-13T08:49:00.000-07:00

Originally featured on The Real Runway Beauty Focus February 29th 2012

It's a lazy Tuesday morning, and I'm taking a brain-vacation on the Daily Fail (don't even try and tell me you don't do the same on a caffeine-low) and amongst the it-girls, soap stars and Kardashians my eye is drawn to Thandie Newton. Always stays safe on the red carpet Thandie Newton. Flawless skin Thandie Newton. Elfin beauty Thandie Newton. yeah…sure. As I begin to read the oh-so-subtley worded right-up, my fashion ears prick up, and I notice yet another example of a hair trend I've been noticing more than ever recently- the natural fro. Thandie has given up the chemical straighteners so her daughters don't feel pressured or ashamed of their natural curls, and to set the example that natural is better. Firstly…that is hella cute. Secondly, babes…fro's are seriously in right now, what an excellently well-timed act of altruism.

Solange Knowles; my favourite human being.

Whilst plodding the streets around fashion week, I couldn't help notice that the fro was out in force (its something I would notice, as I myself sport a do something akin to Scary Spice circa 1997) and not just on the street; some of the most influential fashion darlings of the moment are getting in on the action.

My immediate reference point to this would be Solange Knowles; DJ, model and sister to Patron Saint Beyonce, she's definitely one of fashion's current obsessions. Sitting front row at fashion weeks, and the front pages of magazines, her eclectic aesthetic, and expert execution of the 'print block' makes her a favourite with the fashion pack. And her fro is now exception. Moving away from the lace-front route of most black women in fashion, Solange cut it short and started again, and now has an ample eau natural fro to show for it. The results hark back to the 60's and 70's, compliments bright colours and a mixture of prints; everything that fashion's going crazy for right now.

Another fro-conoseiur, and street-style photographer favourite is Wonderland magazine editor Julia Sarr-Jamois. Her colours are always bright, her mane slightly more untamed than knowles' or Newton's and her voice, decidedly fashion forward. Jamois isn't a popstar or an actress, she's knows her shit, she's a cross-section of the 'fashion woman'. This works to show that the fashion industry is going to take reference from within, and the black woman makes up a tangible, influential and aesthetically rich part of the industry, it's no wonder the hair is getting bigger. We saw Meadham Kirchoff's quaffed luminous fro's sauntering down the runway last season and every editorial seems to be brimming with curly locks; this all has to come from somewhere.

As the afro crops up more and more on the street, the runway and the magazines, it kind of warms my heart that Thandie is showing her daughters to embrace their curls, (it's not always the easiest thing to do in the awkward years) After all the hairstyle crosses trends, race and gender and symbolises something decidedly fun about personal style.

I'll end with a sentence I mostly regard with disgust and cringeworthy aversion when it gets used in fashion; but with regards to this style, I feel like it works: "If you've got it, flaunt it."

Peplum Pride

2012-04-02T07:11:00.000-07:00

I feel a little short off the mark here, but my goodness, aren't peplums everywhere? No, but like really. I'm a serious advocate of the charity/vintage shop, so sometimes my vision gets blurred when an 80's shape comes back to the mainstream, because its been in my field of vision constantly, but this one really is back.

About 6 months ago it adorned catwalks, and editorials alike, taking on many manifestations, but the celebrity wearer started off as somewhat vanilla. Kate Middleton (not hating on Kate fyi) donned a grey one, Victoria Beckham pouted in a pencil skirted one, and aside from causing Kate's sizeable fanbase to embark on yet another mass shopping pilgrimage to Reiss, it didn't, on the whole make for a lasting trend.

This is probably because Kate kind of needs a peplum. She's a skinny lady, and a pencil skirt is not always the skinny lady's friend. The key to a pencil skirt, is not actually resembling a 2B. So not everyone could relate. A trend like the peplum needs the sex factor to get it across the midriffs of England on a larger scale. We need a sexy-fied connoisseur, we need to see how it fairs on a girl with some meat. aka we need to see how big it's gonna make our bums look.

Then somewhere along the line, Liv Tyler wore the Peplum. Beyonce wore the peplum, Queen of the derriere Kim Kardashian wore the peplum; the nation was hooked. The peplum style is not going to make you look skinner. No no no. The gathered fabric around your middle, kicking out at the waist makes your bum look big. No two ways about it. And the width of your hips in comparison to your waist can look batshit cray. But who says this is a bad thing?

Turn on every TV Channel, and we see round bums and cinched in waists, the hourglass is back people. The peplum trend is the final look embracing that, and the nation loves it. And having exaggerated curves in a controlled way feels good. It exudes sexiness, and we're even starting to see this in editorial. The peplum goes hand in hand with the crop top in terms of styling for magazine editorial, and we're seeing skinny minis like Miranda Kerr and Raquel Zimmerman radiating with accentuated curves in magazines that wouldn't have dained to shoot such cleavage or ass before.

It works because women feel attractive, and men find it attractive. With so many variations to the style, everyone can find a way of incorporating it so it compliments you. As long as you don't end up looking like a lost ballerina, the peplum, in my eyes, can do no wrong.

Archive: The reality Star's Guide to Beauty

2012-03-28T09:48:00.000-07:00

With 'Made in Chelsea' returning for it's third series on Monday, I present the reality star's guide to beauty. Taken from an article written for ‘The Muse.tv’ on 13th May 2011

I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling my weird love/hate relationship with my television taking on more of the ‘hate’ at the moment. ‘The only way is Essex’ has been followed by ‘Made in Chelsea’, which is soon to be followed by what I can only describe as an embarrassment to our fair isle; ‘Geordie shore’. Oh dear.

Don’t get me wrong, I am guilty in indulging once in a while in the kind of American vacuous ‘scripted reality’ that have spawned these region based British counterparts; first there was ‘Laguna Beach- the real orange county’ (inspired by the hugely successful fictional drama ‘the OC’), then there was ‘The Hills’ (following the young life of Lauren

Conrad; a woman that started as a girl on Laguna Beach), then there was ‘The City’ (another spin-off featuring Whitney Port; the one that was slightly more edgy) Then there were a million others, and my IQ was halved.

Laguna beach started in 2004, and I became aware of it via MTV, probably around 2005, so that gives me a solid dose of 6 years of rubbish swilling around my head, and although I wasn’t ever the biggest fan, I found it a funny kind of escapism, middle ground between a sitcom and a documentary but now that’s all changed. Why is it that this type of TV only now is starting to really bother me? I think the answer is pretty clear. All these programmes have been up until now very far removed.

I I don’t live in LA or on a Californian beach, nor do I conduct my life around long lunches with girlfriends to gossip/snipe/catfight about the night before and then storm off to my waiting white BMW/Range rover. Its not real life, its just something to laugh at and turn your brain off to and I’m very happy with that. But Essex isn’t LA, neither is

Chelsea, or for that matter Newcastle. Their all within a short travelling distance, they’re not far-removed and they’re all part of the social make-up of Britain. But these people don’t seem to be removing themselves from hollywood, living in a dream world of boob jobs, scandal and fakery that I don’t associate with the Britain I love, but I think others don’t see it that way.

With this weeks episode of The Muse.TV surrounding beauty, I thought I’d take a minute to examine the ‘Scripted reality’ star’s ‘guide to beauty’ (if you will). When I was filming the latest episode, within the beauty industry, I found professionals who were dedicated to artistry, care of the skin, and not drastically changing what you have, but

highlighting it. The make-up artists were really pushing the idea of a base for your skin, a primer to allow less actual layers of make-up, and care for the skin underneath. But when was the last time you heard of this kind of regime on TV? no. No no no no no. If I was a make-up artist I’d be throwing my eyelash curlers at the screen in frustration.

To achieve the beauty standards of the scripted reality star, one must start not with a rejuvenating primer, or a good moisturiser but it seems invasive surgical procedures. In ‘The Hills’ these procedures were actually totally ignored by producers, and the viewer was just supposed to assume the way its stars filled their bikinis was genuine. But British reality stars have never been known for their subtlety; ‘The Only Way Is Essex’ could probably be defined by the identicat faces of its female characters, and makes no qualms about openly glamorising surgery and other forms of extreme beauty treatments. There is talk of botox parties, boob jobs, and even mention of the tanning injections

‘melanotan’, which has links to cancer, and causes chronic nausea; but as the buxom and bronzed Amy Childs says “you look good all the time!”

Amy Childs is I would say the UK ambassador of this guide. She jokes about needing boob holes in the massage table of her beauty salon to cater for all the boob jobs in Essex, and when looking for an assistant wants a clone of herself- into fake tan, boob jobs and cheek fillers. She’s recently been photographed outside of the parameters of the programme dressed in a replica outfit to one worn by Katie Price, so this gives an idea of the genre of ‘beauty’ she puts herself in. I’m not for a minute suggesting that Amy Childs and the rest of the cast of ‘The only way is Essex’ are solely to blame for what I see as portraying harmful and invasive procedures as commonplace, but with 1.55 million viewers of the itv2 programme surely its something to question?

In the end I wouldn’t class my scripted reality star’s guide to beauty as ‘beauty’. The people in the industry I’ve met aren’t promoting a necessity to cut, jab, and inflate to look your best, it should be something fun and experimental, and as much as these programmes promote surgery and other extreme procedures as this, this is obviously not the case. Each to one’s own, and surgery does work for some people, but it is not the same as putting on eyeliner, or using a highlighter product to enhance your assets, no matter how accessible and acceptable it becomes.

To conclude, I’d like to turn to a woman who has long fascinated me, and is perhaps who I regard as the first glaringly obvious tragedy of scripted reality programmes. If Amy Childs is the princess, she is the queen, and if we can learn anything the portrayal of beauty in these programmes, its from reality veteran Heidi Montag. After starring in MTV’s ‘The Hills’ from 2006-2010, Montag became completely unrecognisable from the fresh faced girl whose naivety and girl next door looks had defined the programme. At the peak of her surgery she underwent ten procedures in one day including brow-lifts, ear-pinnings, a chin reduction, as well as a second rhinoplasty and second breast augmentation. Her surgery wasn’t mentioned on the show until well into its development, but her face and body were changed dramatically for the viewing public, explicitly talked about or not. Montag is just a year older than me (now 24, but 22 when the main bulk of her surgery was carried out) and has been described as being thrown head first into a Barbie factory.

In 2010 Heidi spoke of her regret of the procedures she underwent. “Parts of my body definitely look worse than they did pre-surgery. This is not what I signed up for.” She adds, “I definitely think I should have been way more informed. I think that doctors should really walk you through all aspects of it, not just the glamorous side of it. Doctors, it’s like they’re selling you cookies or something.I would love to not be ‘plastic girl’ or whatever they call me. Surgery ruined my career and my personal life and just brought a lot of negativity into my world. I wish I could jump into a time machine and take it all back. Instead, I’m always going to feel like Edward Scissorhands”

Maybe its time to turn off.

Cat-Eye Crazy

2012-03-19T10:06:00.000-07:00

My take on Kim Kardashian in Tom Ford's Nikita

OK, so I'm a freelancer. I work from home quite a lot, I have a little studio area, a nice big desktop, a slightly battered laptop and area where I draw and run NKOYO. I'm very lucky I can do this, but as any fellow freelancers know, this sort of set-up can cause lapses in judgement when it comes to a little light entertainment when a tea-break rolls around. Hense my obsession with the Kardashians. This isn't even a piece specifically about the Kardashians, but I feel like its my day in court when it comes to justifying my overall credibility.

The Kardashians are (in the words of a male friend) everything that's wrong with the world. A shameless display of wealth and celebration of vacuous stupidity, a false representation of life and what should be important...but, I admit it, I'm obsessed. Its cringe-worthy decision making at it's peak, its 72 day marriages, its tantrums, its Birkins, Loubitouns and fake lashes. Its my guilty pleasure. Shoot me.

So it pains me to say that I gleaned what I reckon will be one of this summer's best accessory staples from none other than a Kardashian. It was Kourtney (she's the cold-hearted one.) And the trend was Cat-eye sunglasses. Sure, the Kardashians weren't the ones that pioneered this trend, durr, try Norma Jean, but I love how these 50's throw backs are making a come-back and having a re-work. This generation of cat-eye, are worn to complement the contrasts of the season. Not so much all, out retro, Sandra-Dee, more Rizo with a dose of attitude. The brights mixed with fluoros, the leathers mixed with drapery, the class mixed with trash (hense the Kardashian.)

From a weekend away in Paris I've seen the Kardashian sister's favourites Tom Ford's Nikita in countless windows, and on countless a lady slurping a coffee outside a boulangerie. This didn't surprise me, as they kind of surmise Paris in a spectacle; classic chic with a modern twist. They really are my choice investment for the season.

If Tom's are a bit pricey, try River Island's for £13 squids.

Archive: Fashion Freaks form an orderly que...

2012-03-14T08:45:00.000-07:00

Originally featured in ‘The real Runway’ August 21st 2011

If you're new to TTR and don't know how we roll, let us tell you one thing: we can sniff out a publicity stunt at ten paces. Quite frankly we've seen it all, and it takes the fashion world quite a lot to shock us.

Case in point, fashion's latest specimen in the viewing gallery: Rick Genest, aka. Rico the Zombie. The Canadian model tattooed top-to-toe in intricate anatomical artwork. Dude is clearly interesting to look at, but once you've seen the tatts where do you go from there? Sure, Gaga writhed on him in Born This Way, but a week later it was some other piece of meat. Formichetti's obsessed with him?...erm..cool?

Same with Andre Pejic. He's a boy, but he looks like a girl. A beautiful one, granted, but there are lots of beautiful girls. He's been in FHM's sexiest list as a man and a woman. Call us all kindsa skeptical, but the 19 year old is another media pawn to spark a bit of questionably homophobic controversy. Stories like these in fashion are like cheap firecrackers: there's a big bang when they explode but the spark's diminished within seconds. Who's next in line to the fashion freak show? We're pretty much immune to it all so this better be good.

It seems Brazilian label Auslander beg to differ, however. Plucking these two fashion mould-breakers from the blogs and column inches in which they currently swirl and plonking them into their Spring 2012 campaign. In doing so, telling us we should be shocked by what these two stand for, especially paired together. Hi-jacking and exploiting their brand of crazy is done with such brazen column-inch hungriness you'd think the collection itself would be equally as, ahem, 'controversial'. Shock horror, another firecracker goes out.

Yes, Pejic's gender fuckery (mixing men's and womenswear with such poised ease) does retain your attention that little bit longer, but that's Pejic's deal... not down to Auslander's slogan tees and Peter Pan necklines. Genest's poses are bold and engaging and the colours in his carcass-art compliment the navy's of some of the pieces. But for all their zaniness we can't help but feel, well... underwhelmed. Auslander's clothing (unlike its choice of models) brings zero new to the table. Nice, but a million miles from controvershe'.

The campaign bonus is that it puts these two anti-classical images of beauty into a mainstream context - you don't have to be lipsing Gaga or prancing about in an arty video to own looking different. But in the same breath, people like Genest and Pejic keep being the catalysts for getting gratuitious column inches. In a lot of instances the people who reap the benefits ain't wholly deserving.

Rihanna is not da one.

2012-03-12T05:45:00.001-07:00

For a while now, I've felt like I can't turn my head without seeing an image of Rihanna grabbing her crotch, bending over and asking for it, or biting her lip like a pseudo porn star. Its my own fault for reading gossip rags, but Rihanna is kind of the biggest pop star on the planet right now, she's hard to avoid… and I find it quite worrying. Sure I lolled my way through Vice's article on how many times Rihanna grabs her crotch during her latest video masterpiece for 'You Da One', and chortled at her skins-esque attempt at glamourising drug use in the video for 'We found Love' but aside from her hilarious attempts at edginess, I can't help but have a bad taste in my mouth from the overall message she portrays.

Sure, I hear you cry, the female representation in pop music is one of the biggest stains on feminism of the last few decades, but there are a few reasons why I feel like Rihanna's persona is worse than say your Beyonce, or your Gaga. Firstly, Rihanna is what you'd call a totally manufactured artist. She writes none of her own music, goes on cripplingly long world tours, and during the time that she's away gyrating across the globe, someone else has worked out her change of direction, written her an album and had her new hairstyle fashioned into various weaves. She just arrives home, has a beach holiday (where she's papped relentlessly) then slots right back in. What comes with this sort of existence, I believe is an admittance of role-model status. She's not a musician, singing because she can't do anything else but express herself. It's not bursting out of her like Gaga or Beyonce, she's not getting something off her chest that otherwise would probably manifest into alcoholism or depression like Adele, she just wants to be a pop-star. So wouldn't you think, if your soul aim was to show off, you really were still just a girl that likes to sing and dance, but with no real message or concept, you'd want to promote a better image for yourself, the young girls that worship you, and women in general, than pretty much just a piece of meat?! Erm, no. Clearly she doesn't.

And that is honestly the impression I get of Rihanna, especially of late. She has become so sexualised, that she's in nympho territory, Songs about S&M, videos about rape, her (undoubtedly perky) behind up in our grills 24-7. However lyrically she utilises her constantly apparent sexuality in such a submissive manner. Take 'You Da One', which I've briefly touched upon already. The video in which she appears to be vigourously enticing the arrival of thrush in some leather dungarees. We aren't even two lines in and we've got "…You Are The One So I Make Sure I Behave!" Nice bit of female ownership there RiRi, you have a male love interest, so your immediate concern is not to step out of line. Very 1950's. Then later on we have the delightful "And Yes I'm kinda crazy,That's what happens baby, When you put it down you shouldnt've give it to me Good like that, shouldnt've hit it like that, Had me yellin' like that, Didn't know you would've had me coming back" Like, yeah women are so weak, that all it takes is a night of passion and we're snivelling wrecks. That is just what feminism needs right now.

These lyrics aren't the worst example of Rihanna's less than empowering message, but they're also not the worst example of similar thinly valid misogyny in modern pop music. So why does it strike such a chord with me with Rihanna specifically? Well as I said before, Rihanna is a pure pop star. She's not busying herself with trivialities like, I don't know, writing music. Durr! She's talking to her bordering on 15 million twitter followers. She's not honing her craft, or going awol for days on a creativity…or substance binge; no no she's diligently turning up to celebrity bashes, having her photo taken and making every item of clothing she wears sell out in seconds. Even her hair (ahem…wig) influence is so strong that Asda has seen a 41 percent increase in sales of blond hair dyes since she sported a new do at the Grammys. She has an impact (granted kind of a vacuous one) and this is probably felt the most amongst the more malleable of age groups. Young people, who haven't quite looked outside the realms of the top 40 for inspirayray. Who are still in that awkward stage, who will see her portrayal of what being a woman is, and think that's reality. Bad vibes.

The words of a certain crooner caught my eye on the subject recently. Obvs me and Will Young could totes be friends in another life. He says: "I don't think Rihanna is a massively great role model for women, her lyrics aren't empowering. She's a brilliant pop star and recording artist but her lyrics are not empowering - young girls have to listen to those lyrics...Women in a patriarchal society should be empowering and owning their bodies; I don't think Rihanna is. I feel quite strongly about this."

He goes on to make the point which I think is most important here- "I'm more interested in female pop stars that are empowering for women as a feminist myself. You can sexualize yourself in an empowering way. Adele doesn't sexualize herself yet she's very open about her heartache." I agree with Will. It is very true; Rihanna is a beautiful female popstar, with a very sexual appearance; full lips, curves that don't quit; even taken away from all the hoopla. Of course her image wilt be sexual. Its the lack of empowerment that's the issue.

Rihanna is still 24 years old (younger than me by a few months…and who's the one with millions in the bank, perhaps I should re-consider the positions of my hemlines.) so there should still be a lot of progression in the works, and while I don't consider her the type with the nouse to change the world, or break away from the machine that created her, and continues to mould her, I do hope her lyrics, tone and appearance move on from the base message she sends out which is, let's face it- 'come and get it; I'm definitely up for it'.

Hold on- news just in, she's just done a song with that guy that beat her up. Might not hold my breath.

Archive: Lie to us Lana

2012-03-09T05:33:00.000-08:00

Originally Featured in The Real Runway February 2nd 2012

So yeah, Lana Del Rey's got an album out…Haven't you heard? Oh its probably because the promotion's been super subtle... Oh wait! Yeap, its time for the TTR two cents re: Del Rey. You must've known it was coming, we're pretty sure even Horse and Hound are doing a feature on her. Yes the pucker-lipped princess of the pseudonym is everywhere, and it seems the great swathes of initial awe and lust are moving in a more questioning direction.

Her album is getting a bit of a slamming review wise, despite being number one in like every country. She's Louis Vuitton clad on the front of Vogue (no mean feet after what… two singles?) But who she actually isseems to be at the forefront of everyone's minds. And to be honest, its not that hard to see why.

The thing about using a stage name is that the first thing the press ask is, "So, err, what's your realname?" as soon as theres the slightest hint of the disingenuous, a whiff of deception, the investigation pitches up, and unfortunately for Lana, well Lizzy to be precise, there's yellow tape, all round her crime scene… The media smell a rat.

She's not the first to pop into the cultural consciousness from a few YouTube videos and a nice set of pins, but she is definitely something different to what dominates the mainstream right now. Whereas Rihanna is a product of Beyonce, Nikki Minaj a product of Lil Kim and Gaga a product of, well, the list's too long, Lana's not like your average top 40er. There's certainly borrowed elements: a little Winehouse-eqsue pain, some of the weird disconnect you get from Florence and the Machine and those Monroe references are constant - but her delivery, her look, her approach is something new. And that's tough. When you're something new, and you want to be 'accepted' you have to spend a lot of time making the idiots 'get it'. People spend a lot of time going…"oh? so this is like, what your about? ...really?"

The issue with Lana Del Rey, is that her answers don't seem water tight. One minute she's fresh from a trailer park, all ghetto nails and heartbreak, next minute theres a billionaire daddy backing her to the hilt. She's pitching herself as the 'Gangster Nancy Sinatra' but we're pretty sure Nance' woulda made a bit less of a pig's ear of that Saturday Night Live performance. Next thing you know, the tabloids are squawking: 'She's buckling under the pressure'…'Friend's say she's cracking'. They've only known her name five minutes that didn't take long.

Being something different, carving your own hole into the industry and nestling comfortably in there is what separates the wheat from the chaff, it's the stuff great stardom is made from. The aforementioned Winehouse is a prime example of this, but if there's one thing the media never questioned was whether she was genuine. In fact it seems the more genuine are in this field, the more likely you are to meet an untimely demise, maybe Lana's just protecting herself from this glare with a suit of armour made of denim and sex appeal, but that seems unlikely. She's probs just got a good stylist. That's the thing with Del Rey is its hard to know if she's just some girl with a good team of image makers and a nice Barnet, or the 'real deal' whatever that might be.

Our instinct is that we won't get that answer for a while. What makes a performer is their live offerings, no matter what her die hard fans say she still has some stuff to prove on that front. If it turns out her whole persona is as surgically pumped up as her top lip, its pretty likely she'll be chewed up and spat out before you can say 'collagen'. But if that's really her, we've got a fucking superstar on our hands.

'Born to Die' is out now.

2012-03-08T08:49:00.000-08:00

Welcome. My name is Alice Nyong, and I am a freelance writer. I have been writing mainly fashion related content for various lovely outlets for a little over a year. As well as my scribblings, I am an illustrator and print designer, with my own accessories label; NKOYO.

Drawing pictures was always my first priority, but fashion has been a love since before I can remember. After finishing a gruelling, yet career defining internship at a major fashion house, I took time to explore my love, and try and find my place in it. It was through this process that I stumbled across writing.

I worked as a presenter and contributor to an online fashion site, and the creative director was all about anti-bullshit. He sent out a group email asking for a piece about John Galliano's Parisian anti-semetic controversy and I had a go. The nature of the response it had was such that I got the hunger to do more, and began to write lengthy and semi-provocative pieces about fashion issues as I saw them. Not necessarily as an outsider, but certainly as a a sceptic.

I joined Ellen Grace Jone's team at The Real Runway as a contributing writer soon after, her no-nonsense outlook was, and still is the perfect fit; if I've got an acid tongue then I'd say her's is nuclear. As well as fashion week reports, and reviews, she encourages me to run free, and question and find humour in the craziness and hoopla. It's gorge.

Now I write for Ellen and other publications, but I have other things even Ellen doesn't wanna have to wade through. So this will be a place for me to archive some of my favourite pieces since I started writing, and to create pieces that belong here; in my own space. From where I see it; fashion is vast, encompassing, highly influential, subjective and above all; well funny...it deserves to be talked about.

nyongalice@googlemail.com